Background

For a 3 day trip I experienced a real adventure, meeting and get hosted by the tribes who are living directly next to the river. It wasn't planned at all! I made a friend in Kudat (in Sabah) 2 weeks before and we planned to travel together around Kuching.

He is a guy, 35 years old, same as me don't want to book travel packages, rather find out places by yourself. His name is David from Hungary, physic teacher, lived in China and Vietnam and finally turned out that he is really hard to deal with! But later more about it.

So we thought it would be an great adventure to go by boat on the river Batang Rajan (one day boar trip from Kuching) to end up at strong rapids -it's not a trip you would find in a Lonely Planet guide -and we didn't see any traveller. We had to take a boat from Kuching 4 hours to Sibu and planned from there 3 hours with a speed boat to Kapit. Some local men sat on the roof of the boat, next to stowage and chicken. So did we! We drove maybe 2 hours on the river, a blessing wind blew into our face, next to stunning jungle and small villages, farms, plantations and real longhouses (where modern tribes live). The landscape and the hole atmosphere was incredible.

And the adventure started …
We thought wouldn't it be amazing to just jump off the boat and ask the local tribes to stay with them for the night…

It took me a little while to decide to actually do it, but when we jumped off the boat at a little jetty of a some houses at 6pm, we directly got in contact to a nice Iban lady, who is actually a english teacher - how lucky! She just came form the hospital where she visited her father who just had an stroke - it surprised me that she was still very inviting!

A bunch of curious kids ran to us and helped with caring some stuff. We went threw the house and curious heads looked up as they had never seen foreigners. There are now streets, so the only way to move around is taking a longboat or speedboat.

In a very welcoming way, she showed us to here house, served some tea and cut up some Durian (the king fruit from Asia which smells disgusting like drainage). She lives together with another teacher in a small house, next to the school and explained us here involvement in this spot of earth and how people live here. They also showed us photos of their traditional tribe harvest festival, where I only read about in books.

She has three kids who are living in Sibu (3hours drive away), her husband has to work in Miri (even more far away) and she doesn't has the choice to decide where to work. Apparently the government sets them where ever they want. The only thing you can do it apply for a change of spot closer to the family, which the government hardly support. I learned that she is an example for a lot of teacher in Malaysia.

Anyway, in exchange for the host, we asked to teach the kids some english, which idea they really liked.

To my astonishment, at 7pm in the night heaps of kids dressed up in pyjama run to the school. They start school very early in the morning from 7am to 12 and then have 3 hours off the heat, then have afternoon lessons and at 7pm have homework classes. (So late!!)

I was really excited to stand in front of the class, with all this cheeky monkeys, who were so curious and excited about us! It wasn't really teaching, but more conversation, which is a good practice for them. Kids in between of 5 and 9 were all together in this classroom, it was quite loud but whenever I did "schhhhhhht" they really kept silent. They gave me two self made plastic recycle flowers for a gift. It was a great experience and it made me confident to do some teaching volunteering in some other countries.

Disappointment of the "traditional" longhouse of the Ibans
The next day we had to take the only boat at 6 am in direction to Kapit. It is a small and rustic town on the river with a food market(it slightly reminded me of an indian slum). You could feel that barely no tourist appear here in this place, because we white people stand out like a sort that doesn't belong to this place. We heard that you can visit a traditional longhouse of the Iban tribe, so we bargained with one taxi driver after the other. One thing I learned, don't trust only one advice -always double check with others. There is a language barrier and even if they don't understand, they say "yes". I assume they don't want to loose their face.

Anyway finally we found an acceptable price for a taxi and got to this traditional longhouse (30 mins away form town). It does actually look like a longhouse like the time would have frozen a hundred of years ago (apart of the satellites). But… the hole atmosphere was very negative. The people who live there where absolutely screwed up, weren't welcoming, didn't smile at all and expected us to pay for a big sum of money in order to do some photos or stay for the night. Sadly it got a bad business and money changed their manner.

The common procedure visiting and staying in a longhouse is upon arrival you have to present yourself to the headman (Ketua Kaum in Malay or thai rumah in Iban) of the longhouse, who would arrange for every basic sleeping quarters. But in the last decades or even two, as transport has become easier and tourist numbers have soared, the tradition has come under strain and these days turning up at a tradition longhouse unannounced may be unwelcome. We quickly made some photos and decided against our initial idea to stay for the night.

Back in town we took a speed boat in direction to Pelagus (to see the rapids). Again we sat on the roof of the boat, talked to some locals and enjoyed the beautiful jungle landscape.

And the next adventure started…
As excited we were of seeing the rapids, we had this great experience in showing up at the school unexpectedly and again thought how cool it would be to see this place. David asked a guy who were about to jump off the boat if we could stay with them for the night and he agreed.

The speedboat led us off at a small sand bank and from there another guy picked us up with his pretty wobbly longboat 50 meter to the land.

All people were really curious about us. Their english were quite basic but still we learned more about their historical and now modern life and they taught us some Iban and Malay words. We got shown their still using hunting equipment of guns. They still hunt wild pigs, fish, frogs and other small animals. I asked them if I could join them while hunting in the night for wild pigs but obviously this isn't woman work and also they climb up in the trees and hide for a long time to clear human smell. I so would have loved to stay there longer!

Land of Headhunters!
For over 100 years ago, and it exist still rarely on the border to Indonesia, headhunting was an important element of Borneo's indigenous culture. The taker of heads often bore no personal animosity to their victims! But I also heard this tribes cut off the heads from the enemy neighbours. In the upper river Batang Rajan (where I got accommodated), head hunting was a common method of wooing a perspective bride. When a men wanted to marry a women, the father would ask 10 heads for instance. Apparently the most valuable heads were those belonging to women and children because only the smartest and sneakiest warrior could ambush a child or a mother. After cutting the head, the warrior return to the longhouse in the next morning, where the head would be smoked and strung up for the others to see and honour. A longhouse with many heads was feared and respected by the neighbouring tribes.

Nowadays head hunting is banned but it was bazaar to meet this old Iban men, filled with tattoos for special meaning like a traveller, head hunter or just traditional tattoos. A men who hunted a head would be permitted to tattoo their finger with a dot (5 was maximum for a finger I got told later on).

I have noticed an black flower on each shoulder, which I learned that at the age around 10 or 11 a young Iban would get their first tattoo, a bungai terung (eggplant flower). The design, using fermented sugarcane juice and hand-tapped bamboo or bone needles, means the beginning of one's journey as a man (women got them as well) - it symbolised new life and is a reminder that patient is a virtue.

The Iban were very happy to show us around and told us that in the earlier years when they had an old traditional Longhouse, more tourists came to visit them. But because they live in-between of traditional life and modern, no longer anyone were interested in seeing them. Especially one man showed me how much they want to be friend with us.

Trip: 3 days

Accommodation: Home stay and Longhouse

High points: experience the incredibly hospitality of the Malays tribe

Low points: my travel friend has a loose temper and quite often freaked out

Message: Be brave and go out, get lost, jump off the comfortable zone - experience authentic adventure

Next:

Motorbike tour to Bao, Lundu, Pandam Beach (Waterfall hike)